House Minority Leader Brad Jones cosponsored a rejected amendment to roll the state income tax rate back from 5.3 percent to 5 percent as of January 2013, and another to establish a sales-tax holiday weekend.

"Once again, we don't have a revenue problem, we have a spending problem," he said in a statement to the State House News Service after the vote.

Massachusetts voters approved an income tax rollback 11 years ago, but the state opted instead to freeze the income tax rate at 5.3 percent. The GOP amendment failed by a margin of 34-120, nearly along party lines, with three Democrats in favor.

Republican file photoState Rep. Stephen Kulik, D-Worthington.

Among those who spoke on the House floor was Western Mass. Rep. Stephen Kulik, D-Worthington, who argued that, "I think people realized that when people were voting on that and considering it in the 2000 election, they were being told that we could afford an income tax cut, a rollback, with no impact on services. I remember that very well. You can't have it both ways. "

He said that constituents have been calling his office demanding that services be preserved:

In the two weeks or so since the House Ways & Means committee released a budget, the taxpayers and citizens that I've been hearing from - and have been by the hundreds in terms of phone calls and e-mails, I'm sure each of you have experienced that as well - have not been calling or e-mailing to say, 'Lower our income tax rate.' They haven't been calling to say, 'Cut revenue.' They've been calling to say, 'Please, increase spending on the services that matter to me.'

Another GOP proposal to reduce the 6.25 percent sales tax to 5.625 percent was also rejected, though House Speaker Robert DeLeo has pledged that no new taxes will be included in the House budget.

“We’re not going to have new taxes. No fees and no other gimmicks will be in our budget," he said recently, according to The Republican. "It’s not going to have anything of that sort.”

Among the most controversial provisions is a proposal from DeLeo that would allow municipalities to alter public union employees' health plans without the process of collective bargaining. Raymond F. McGrath, political director for the National Association of Government Employees in Quincy, told The Republican the plan was “Wisconsin-esque.”

The State House News Service reports that budget deliberations Tuesday will also focus on transportation and environmental amendments to the state budget.